One Night In Paris

[zenigatcha]

[ Port Alexandre III after dark.

The memories run deeper than the river does. ]

Zenigata Koichi returns to the bar with little fanfare. There's no kicking in the door, there's no chaotic scene -- indeed, it's a view of a Paris street after dark, street lights creating pools of light over the concrete and asphalt behind him. A patrol car is pulling away behind him, vanishing from sight as the door closes behind him.

Zenigata smells of smoke and rivers, Paris on the Seine after dark. He looks tired and rumpled, and in what might seem uncharacteristic of him to those who met him boisterous and hungry mid-case, he's calmer, quieter, more subdued.

Bellying up to the bar, he lays his hat and coat over it, blocking of one of the seats next to him for all intents and purposes, and then orders whiskey straight, no ice, and a plate of crispy gyoza. It's been that kind of night where one retreats into a bottle of good whiskey and a comfort food.

So Zenigata, half-deaf and full of shadowy thoughts, stares into the window bursting with color as the universe dies in slow motion, and feels just a little bit old.